


If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time

by danrdarrenc



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: M/M, mentions of Will's death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-11 09:21:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11145525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danrdarrenc/pseuds/danrdarrenc
Summary: Sonny makes a wish to have the last eight months of his relationship with Will back to make things right. Amazingly, it works.





	If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time

On one of his many trips around the city during his first weeks in town, Sonny hears about a fountain in a small coastal town in France that’s rumored to grant wishes. Growing up, he’d never been the kind of child who made wishes in the hope that they’d come true; even on his birthdays he didn’t wish, just blew out the candles. 

Yet when he returns to Paris after Will’s funeral he starts to think. He supposes that The Universe taking away the love of his life, his soulmate, cruelly and without a chance for him to make things right, should make him less predisposed to believing in wishes or miracles. But desperation makes people do crazy things, he’s been told. 

A week after his return to Paris, Sonny packs a bag and heads South towards the Gulf of Lion and the Mediterranean Sea. It takes a little over a week to reach his destination; when he arrives, he inquires about the fountain. He’s directed to the center of the village where he finds that the fountain is actually an old-fashioned wishing well. It looks ancient, the bricks of its foundation breaking and sunken into the ground. 

As he stands in front of the well, Sonny thinks about how foolish he’s been, trekking across France for a week to make a wish in a well based on rumors of magic when he doesn’t even believe in wishes. But something has drawn him here, some vague blind hope that he might be able to get Will back. 

So he pulls a penny out of his bag, closes his eyes, and wishes.

* * *

Sonny’s no longer standing in front of the wishing well when he opens his eyes. Instead, he’s standing in the middle of Horton Town Square. He gasps in surprise and his heart begins to race. He feels like Marty McFly as he rushes to the nearest trash bin and fishes out a newspaper.

 _March 18, 2015._ The day he came back from visiting Alex in Arizona. It had worked. He’d wished to have the last eight months back and here he is in Salem eight months ago.

The question now, though, is is his other self around? Or had he wished himself into that body? There’s only one way to find out. Heart racing, Sonny makes a beeline through Horton Town Square towards the apartment.

His body tingles with nerves and anticipation as he pulls up outside door 15, raises his hand, and knocks. 

 _I came back for the club._  That’s what he remembers telling Will. What had he been thinking? 

“Sonny,” Will says when he opens the door a minute later. He looks pale and tired and like he’s lost weight. But he’s alive and well and breathing and Sonny can barely breathe for having Will in front of him again. 

“Hi,” Sonny says, his voice carefully controlled.

“You’re back.”

“Can I come in?” Sonny asks.

“This is still your home - at least, it is if you want it to be,” Will says, stepping aside to let Sonny into the apartment.

Everything is exactly as it had been when he had left - for Arizona, for Paris, when he’d come back for Will’s funeral, when he’d left again for Paris afterwards.

Of course he wants this to be his home, it’s why he travelled for a week across France to make a wish in a well based on a rumor, but he has a role to play here. And if he’s honest with himself, Sonny knows that they have issues to work through before they can be them again. 

So he says, “I’ve had a lot of time to think, Will. I want to work on our marriage. What you did is never going to go away, but I - I love you and I’m not ready to give up on our family.”

Sonny’s heart pounds as he sees the relief wash over Will’s face, his entire body, and it makes everything worth it. 

“You mean that?” Will whispers.

“It’s not going to be easy but I’m willing if you are,” Sonny answers. 

“Yes. Yes, of course I’m willing,” Will says, striding across the floor towards Sonny. 

“That means no more lying. Consistently going to therapy, you, me, both of us together. Complete honesty with each other.” 

Sonny hadn’t realized he’d thought so much about how he would do things differently if he could get back here, but here he is saying the things he should have said the first time.

“And no more cheating,” Will says resolutely. Sonny’s heart soars at Will’s determination. He’s proud that Will is the one who makes this particular promise. 

“And no more cheating,” Sonny repeats, smiling softly at Will, even as the memory of a forced confession burrows it’s way into Sonny’s head. “One question though. And I need you to be honest with me or else this is never going to work.”

“O - okay.”  
  
“Did you sleep with someone else before Paul? Someone in LA?”

He already knows the answer, already knows Will has lied to him about this once, but he wants to see if he truly can change things.

“Yes,” Will whispers after a beat. 

Hearing it a second time doesn’t hurt any less, but Will’s honesty has alleviated some of the discomfort. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Do you - do you still want to stay?” Will asks, deflated.

“Yeah, I do,” Sonny answers immediately and Will breathes a sigh of relief.

“Can I - can I kiss you now?” Will asks.

Sonny nods, unable to speak. He’s imagined this moment every day for the last two weeks - what it would be like to kiss Will again if had the chance. His heart drums against his chest as Will closes the space between them and presses their lips together.

It’s like their first kiss all over again, Sonny’s skin tingling and every nerve in his body on fire, his head spinning. Peace settles over Sonny as he slides his arms around Will’s waist, pulling him closer; he can’t remember the last time he kissed Will like this, thinks perhaps it was sometime in the middle of summer, perhaps sometime before that even, perhaps even before Will had followed Sami to LA.

* * *

Their anniversary party is just as awkward for Sonny the second time around as it was the first; he’s still got unresolved feelings for Paul but they’re lesser now, not as enticing, and the dreams he’d once had of having a family with Paul aren’t recalled as easily this time as he watches Paul get drenched by the kids. He stands firmly by Will, clings to his hand, when the reporter reveals the affair to everyone, publicly shaming Will. 

Later, they don’t argue. Instead, Sonny assures and reassures Will that he loves him, that he’s committed to moving past Will’s infidelity. When Will doesn’t believe him, Sonny shows him with kisses everywhere and nowhere, reacquainting himself with Will’s body in a way that begins to heal his own heart too.

* * *

They go to either individual or couples’ therapy at least twice a week, every week, and debrief the sessions with each other no matter how uncomfortable it may be. 

When they’re not in therapy or talking about therapy, Sonny takes every opportunity to make Will feel loved. He understands now that part of the reason their marriage had fallen apart was because he let Will feel inferior, like a screw up, like he meant nothing to Sonny. He kisses Will whenever he has the chance, holds his hand for absolutely no reason at all, and surprises him with flowers one night just for the heck of it. His reward is Will’s face lighting up, Will preening, Will being more open with him, more amenable to having difficult discussions. 

He wonders briefly if he’s being overhanded and going overboard, but some higher power has granted him this second chance with Will and he is not going to waste it. 

Hyperaware of Will’s insecurity regarding Paul, Sonny maintains a careful distance from his ex-boyfriend. He doesn’t avoid him, per se, but he doesn’t actively seek him out, not like last time, and when he happens to bump into Paul around town he immediately tells Will. 

* * *

At Ari’s birthday party, Will thanks God for Sonny being here, after having been so close to losing him, and Sonny cries not for Will’s words about him but for the still raw sting that Will’s death has left on his soul.

* * *

As May turns into June and June into July, Sonny and Will stitch themselves back together. They still have fights, sometimes loud ones, ones that seem like the end, but they take everything they’ve learned in their therapies and work through the issues with honesty and patience. 

Will is assigned to write a follow-up piece on Paul - how life is now that he’s out - which Will politely but forcefully declines. Will wonders to Sonny if saying no to Zoe might have gotten him fired but Sonny is immensely proud of the progress Will has made, and toasts him with champagne and candlelight when Will is assigned a different piece instead.

Essentially living a new life, Sonny discovers that he wants to open a new coffee shop. Will has told him lately that he misses the old one and Sonny thinks back on the fun times they had together at Common Grounds when they were first together. It’s a good way to commemorate this new beginning with Will he has so graciously and miraculously been given. When he broaches the idea with Will of making Will a partner, Will grins and kisses him hard.  

One day, after a long day of planning, budgeting, and working out a schedule for contractors, Sonny suddenly has a vague memory of the other summer where Will was scheming and lying, plotting to get Paul and Derrick together.

“What do you think about setting Paul up with Derrick?” Sonny asks Will the next morning as they’re cuddling in bed. 

“What?” 

“Don’t you think they’d make a cute couple?”  
  
“Are you seriously going to set up your ex on a date?” Will asks, amused.

“Yeah. Why not?” Sonny smiles. 

“That’s not weird for you?” Sonny hears the undertone in Will’s words.

“He deserves to be happy,” Sonny says truthfully. “He and I are over no matter how many times he tells me still loves me. He should have the chance to find his you.”

Will snorts and Sonny grins. “Okay. You win,” Will says. “So, what? You want to go on a double date?”

“Mmmm, more like set them up on a blind date and spy on them?”

Will’s full-body laugh tinkles around their bedroom and sets Sonny’s soul on fire.

* * *

Will’s article is published the first week of August. It’s an uneventful moment; no one’s reputation is damaged and no one’s dirty secrets are aired for all to see. It’s his first step towards being a “real” journalist, as Will explains to Sonny over dinner, and Sonny plans a family day in Chicago, just him, Will, and Ari, to celebrate.

Together Will and Sonny pass the weeks in August by building up the new coffee house, Ari’s Café. At first, Sonny had wondered if he was crazy to make Will a partner, that it could end up creating a rift between them (creative differences, different work styles), concerns that he discussed with both his personal therapist and their marriage counselor. But he needn’t have worried. Working together has brought Will and Sonny closer together, put them on an even level with each other, eliminating the competition they had had before (and in the other life) between TBD and Will’s writing. Ari’s Café has united them in ways that Sonny could never have imagined. 

In the midst of his and Will’s solidarity, it skips Sonny’s mind that in the now (what he assumes is) nonexistent timeline he is on a plane to Paris, leaving behind both Will’s and Paul’s tearstained faces.

* * *

Sonny walks around Salem tightly wound on the morning that news of Serena Mason’s murder goes public. Will fusses over him, questions him incessantly about if he’s feeling alright, but Sonny brushes him off, tells Will that he just has a headache and he’s worried that the cafe won’t be ready in time for the opening.

He feels guilty lying to Will, having worked so hard to re-build their marriage on trust and honesty. That afternoon Sonny makes an appointment with his therapist and spills everything, that he’s from a different timeline where he and Will constantly fought for the last eight months of their relationship, that therapy didn’t work, that he left town for Paris, that Will is dead, his unending guilt for not having been in Salem when Will died, that he made a wish, and that he ended up here eight months ago to put things right with Will. 

“You probably think I’m crazy right now,” Sonny says to his therapist when he’s done with his story.

“In the many months since you’ve been coming to see me, not once have I ever thought you anything but level-headed and in complete control of your emotions, Sonny. Perhaps a little too controlled, at times,” she says with the hint of a smile. “But never have I known you to be a fantasist. If you’re sitting here in front of me and telling me that you are from a different timeline where you managed to wish yourself back in time to create a new timeline - this timeline - then I believe you.”

Sonny lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Should I tell Will?” Sonny asks. 

“Do you want to tell Will?”

“We’ve been almost painfully honest with each other since I came back here. Since March,” Sonny clarifies. “I don’t like keeping this from him.”

“But,” his therapist prompts.

“But I’m afraid _he’ll_  think I’m crazy,” Sonny admits.

“Has he done that before? Told you that you’re crazy for believing in something?”  
  
“No.”

“Then why do you think this time will be different?” She looks at him with soft blue eyes not so different from Will’s.

“Because I’d think I sound crazy if I didn’t know it was true.”

“When you made your wish, why exactly did you make it?”

Sonny blinks. “Because I wanted to fix things with Will. To have the chance to tell him I still loved him.”

“That’s all?”

Sonny muses on her question. After a long minute, Sonny answers, “Because I didn’t want to live in a world where Will didn’t exist anymore. I was lost without him. Even though we hadn’t really been ourselves for a long time he was still there, y’know? Anchoring me.”

“And didn’t you tell me that you wished - before you actually wished - that you had been here in Salem to maybe prevent Will’s death?”

“Yeah. But couldn’t I do that without telling him I’m from an alternate timeline? Can’t I just like lock him in our apartment on October 9th?” Sonny offers.

“You could. But don’t you think that it might be easier to tell him the truth? Especially when you’ve just told me how guilty you feel for lying to him?”

Sonny ponders her response.

“Our time is up. But think about it, Sonny.”

* * *

Sonny does think about it. He thinks about it every day, tries to tell Will three times to no success, following Serena’s death and his therapy session. He becomes so wound up that Will ends up taking control of the last details they need to get Ari’s Café up and running. 

When Paige Larsen is found dead in her dorm room shower exactly two weeks after Serena’s death, Sonny feels a twinge of guilt. He knew she was going to be murdered and he probably should have warned her to watch out, but he tells himself that she wouldn’t have heeded his warning anyway. 

Whatever guilt rests in his chest over Paige is overshadowed by the news that Gabi is being released from prison. He and Will are both unsure exactly how Aiden pulled it off, but they are overwhelmed with joy when they bring Ari to the police station to reunite mom and daughter. Thoughts of death are momentarily erased from Sonny’s mind as the four of them have a loud but peaceful dinner in the apartment, catching up and Gabi making up for lost time.

It’s only when Will says to him as they’re crawling into bed for the night, “It’s terrible about Paige, isn’t it?” that Sonny remembers.

In that moment, Sonny makes a decision. “Will, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay. It sounds serious,” Will responds and turns under the covers to better look at him. 

“What I’m going to say is probably going to sound crazy but I want you to let me finish before you say anything, okay?” Sonny asks.

Will nods and Sonny takes a deep breath.

“You’re the next Necktie Killer’s victim.” He hadn’t meant to sound so blunt but there it is.

“What?” Will laughs. His smile fades when he sees the look on Sonny’s face. “How do you know that? Do you know who it is? We should go to the police.” Will makes to swipe the phone off the nightstand but Sonny grabs his hand.

“No, Will. Listen, please.” Will drops his hand and listens. “I’m not from here. I’m from an alternate timeline where you and I basically became strangers after I came back from Arizona in March. We fought. We talked in circles. You got more and more desperate, which in turn pissed me off more. In the end, I left Salem to go to Paris to work for Victor. I left just before the murders started. 

“We didn’t speak for over a month. Whatever communication we had with each other was pictures and texts of and about Ari. Until - until you left a voicemail on my phone taking full responsibility for what you did and our problems and I broke. I realized I still loved you and I wanted to fix things with you but I was just about to get on a plane back here when Uncle Victor called to - to tell me you’d been murdered. Just after you’d left me the message, can you believe it?” 

He pauses, the words knocking the wind out of him. He hadn’t realized his other life still affected him so much. But now that he’s started telling Will everything he can’t stop. He’s confessing and Will - this Will, this alive and breathing Will - is his priest.

“I had planned to come home to work on our marriage but I ended up coming home for your funeral. I was a zombie for like a week. I felt so guilty that I wasn’t here to save you, to tell you I loved you, to…everything. When I went back to Paris I trekked a week across France to find a wishing well that was rumored to grant wishes. I wanted the last eight months of my life back. To have _you_  back. To have our marriage back. And it worked.”

He stops talking. Will blinks dazedly at him. 

“You don’t believe in wishes and magic,” Will says after a beat. “But you made a wish to have me back?”

“Yes.”  
  
“You really did that? For me?” 

And Sonny realizes that Will is not dazed because he’s confused. He’s dazed because he doesn’t believe anyone would do that for him.

“Of course,” Sonny says softly. “You’re the love of my life.”

Tears swim in Will’s eyes and his hand finds Sonny’s on top of their comforter. 

“Why didn’t you go to the cops when you first got back here?” Will asks. Sonny is amazed at how easily Will has believed his story. 

“And tell them that Chad’s going to murder three people six months in the future? How would that have looked?” Sonny laughs and Will’s lips turn up in a smile. 

“When does - did - does it happen?” 

“October 9th.” 

“Okay. Okay,” Will says and Sonny can practically see the wheels spinning in his head. “So I just don’t go near Chad on October 9th.”

“How about I don’t let you out of my sight on October 9th?” Sonny deadpans.

“How about we schedule the grand opening of the coffee house for October 9th?!” Will suggests and Sonny’s heart skips a beat.

“There’ll be so many people around and you’ll be busy,” Sonny adds as Will nods. 

Sonny grins, a weight lifted off his chest, and presses Will into the mattress, his mouth on Will’s.

* * *

Despite their plan to keep Will occupied and in the presence of at least one other person at all times, Sonny wakes up on edge on October 9th. He gives Will an extra long kiss good morning and holds his hand all the way across town to the pier where Ari’s Café sits. 

Lucas, Justin, and Adrienne are there when they get there, the first three customers in line for today’s Grand Opening special offers. Will and Sonny open the doors for their parents; the rest of their family members trickle in over the next hour or so. Gabi arrives with Ari and, to Will and Sonny’s surprise, JJ, followed closely by Abi and Ben. Even as the coffee house fills up, they both remain on high alert for Chad to make his appearance.

“He’s in hiding. We’re so dumb,” Will breathes as Sonny presses him against their office door. Things have slowed down a bit as it’s the middle of the day, and they’re taking advantage of the relative emptiness.

“He was in hiding in the other timeline too,” Sonny says against Will’s neck, his hands on the door on either side of Will’s head.

“I don’t think - I don’t think he’ll come,” Will says even as the back of his head thumps against the door and his eyes roll back in pleasure.

“I still think I should keep you occupied,” Sonny says with a smirk, moving his lips to Will’s mouth.

Will grins into the kiss and wraps his arms around Sonny’s neck, all worries forgotten.

Later, when the coffee shop is closed and they’ve said goodnight to Arianna, Sonny falls asleep with his head on Will’s chest, the sound of Will’s heart beating his lullaby.

* * *

Sonny remains tightly wound in the days following the opening of Ari’s Café despite the fact that he has managed to prevent Will’s death. Sonny has seen enough science fiction movies to know that often when a person is destined to die, they can be saved one day but then die the next. 

It helps that they spend most days together at the new coffee house, but on the days when they’re separated - when Sonny’s at TBD or Will’s interviewing someone or writing - Will allays his concerns as much as he can by sending Sonny texts or calling every hour on the hour to let him know he’s okay. 

Sonny relaxes slightly when Chad is arrested in the hospital after a fight with Ben. He’s still not completely convinced that Chad is the murderer, wasn’t convinced he was the murderer in the other timeline either. But the murders seem to have stopped with Serena and Paige as the only victims. Sonny feels only slightly guilty at being relieved two people are dead instead of three. 

It’s only a month later when Abigail and Chad are rescued and Ben tracked down and arrested for being the Necktie Killer (based on Abi’s statement about Ben’s confession to her) that Sonny finally breathes easy.


End file.
